Fresenius Facing Hundreds of Wrongful Death Lawsuits

Fresenius Facing Hundreds of Wrongful Death Lawsuits

By Andrea Gressman

Fresenius Medical Care not only provides kidney dialysis services but also products as well, including the now controversial GranuFlo and NaturaLyte dialysis products that were recently recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In fact, Fresenius is the largest provider of dialysis products and services in the world. The company is now the target of dozens of wrongful death lawsuits related to its recalled products.

The issue at hand is that GranuFlo and NaturaLyte caused hundreds of patients to experience heart attacks and die from their side effect injuries. GranuFlo and NaturaLyte are used in the dialysis treatment process to maintain the patient’s acid levels at a healthy level. However, NaturaLyte and GranuFlo have a different active ingredient than other concentrates that are used for this same purpose, requiring the products to be mixed at a different rate. Evidently this information was not passed on to the medical community properly and as a result they were not mixing GranuFlo and NaturaLyte at the proper rate, which essentially overdosed the patients and caused them to suffer a heart attack.

The plaintiffs that have already filed their NaturaLyte and GranuFlo lawsuits make the claim that Fresenius knew of the situation, yet withheld this information from much of the medical community and the general public. One indication that Fresenius was aware of this information and failed to properly act on it was the fact that in November 2011 they released an internal memo discussing the issues that GranuFlo and NaturaLyte were associated with. However, they only provided this information to their own Fresenius dialysis centers and did not include other dialysis centers that still used their products. As a result, this continued to put thousands of NaturaLyte and GranuFlo users at risk for severe side effects until the FDA stepped in and issued a recall for the products in March 2012.

Late in 2012 there was a group of plaintiffs that filed a request to form a GranuFlo lawsuit multidistrict litigation at the federal level. An MDL is formed to consolidate all lawsuits that are all filed against the same defendant for similar causes. Unlike a class action lawsuit, an MDL still allows plaintiffs to receive individual settlements. It also streamlines the litigation process by combining things like the pre-trial discovery process.

If you or someone you love was injured by GranuFlo and/or NaturaLyte you may be eligible to seek compensation through a lawsuit settlement. Visit the Kidney Dialysis Heart Attack, GranuFlo & NaturaLyte Recall Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Investigation page to receive your free legal review from an experienced NaturaLyte/GranuFlo lawsuit lawyer.